Alan Bates has threatened “possible legal action” against the government for their perceived foot-dragging over financial redress for 555 Subpostmasters who joined him in the Bates v Post Office group litigation order (GLO) High Court case.

Most of the 555 qualify for the government’s special GLO compensation scheme*, announced in 2022 and initially designed to complete in August 2024. When it became apparent that was a completely ludicrous deadline, it was extended by statutory instrument. Bates himself has received two offers of compensation, both of which he has refused, describing the process as an “ongoing uphill struggle“. It’s thought his first offer was for around 18% of his claim (“derisory”) and the second around 30%.

In a Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance email circular, Bates has demanded the government appoint “a highly competent and independent person“, agreed by the Business department, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance and the individual lawyers for the 555.. Bates says they “should be given the authority to drive all the outstanding cases through to conclusion, and instruct all those involved to accept their decisions on all cases. They should be able to review any case at any stage and cut through the nightmare bureaucracy dragging this issue out year after year. And that needs to happen now.“

In his circular Bates complains: “we now find ourselves back in a similar position to that which we had with Post Office i.e. Government has hold of the control of the narrative, and this is the big problem we are having to deal with nowadays.“

Bates continues:

“Some of you may have noticed that following the Minister’s March 2022 announcement that a Scheme was to be launched for us, this was when the early signs of Government’s controlling spin started to appear. They called it a ‘compensation scheme’ and ever since then we have been trying, with limited success, to have the Scheme rightly referred to as a financial redress scheme, which it actually is. Compensation is different to financial redress, as financial redress is meant to put you back to a position you would have been in had Post Office not done what it did to you, which was the agreed aim of the Scheme.”

Bates also has a gripe about the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, on which Lord Arbuthnot sits:

“During the 2022 meetings about the proposed structure of the Scheme with BEIS, latterly DBT, and from here on referred to as the Department, we knew an independent Oversight committee needed to be formed to deal with any concerns that arose for the victims and to ensure the Scheme moved swiftly. With that committee having the authority to be able to move in and sort any logjams that might occur. In principle the formation of such a committee was agreed and when supporters of our long fought campaign were appointed to it, at first glance all seemed very promising.

“However, the reality of what actually occurred was very different. The Department set the committee up, renamed it an Advisory Board and reduced its remit whilst broadening the Schemes it was to encompass. Furthermore, the Department acts as the secretariat to the Advisory Board and keeps the keys as to whom is allowed access to it. The JFSA has never once been allowed to engage with the Board at its meetings or was included in the discussions about its remit, and this too has been a further example of how it is now the Department is controlling the narrative.

“As is recognised now, the first year of the Scheme was basically lost because Post Office either by design or with its usual systemic incompetence could not cope with being able to provide disclosure on the bulk of your cases despite holding the names of all the victims at the time of the Minister’s announcement in March 2022. Both we, the JFSA and Freeths [the solicitors who acted for the JFSA in Bates v Post Office and in helping them set up the GLO scheme], warned the Department at the earliest of meetings we had with it after March 2022, pointing out that Post Office disclosure was going to be the major stumbling block. Yet as usual, the Department would not listen to advice from those with years of experience of battling Post Office, it arrogantly took the opinion that it knew better and it would not happen under its watch – how wrong that proved to be, and we all have had to suffer because of that. And all this feels a bit déjà vu-ish of Post Office with their Schemes and the way they twisted and controlled them.”

Bates tells the group that 150 people in the GLO scheme have gone for the £75,000 take-it-or-leave-it offer and a further 10 – 20 people have settled for larger sums. A similar number have not responded to Freeths or the JFSA, leaving around 320 outstanding, so called “complex” cases to resolve.

Bates says he doesn’t know what progress is being made with the bulk of those cases because he “can’t believe the figures from the Department ‘controlling the narrative’, as there is no transparency to the figures they hold on their spreadsheets. Some figures are available from other sources, but there is nothing independently verified.”

If things continue to stall, Bates says legal action is being considered and will be discussed at some, as-yet-unscheduled JFSA meetings this Autumn (which Bates firmly notes will not be held at Fenny Compton). Bates says the prospect of going back to court is “unfortunate“, but concludes “if that’s the only way, so be it, and have no doubt we have the support of the nation and the media if we have to go out and raise the funds needed to go to court again.“

He’s almost certainly right on that point!

* 63 of the 555 had criminal convictions, which have now been overturned, qualifying them for the Overturned Conviction “scheme”

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